Renault's plan to cover the roof's of its auto plants in France (Source: metaefficient.com)

Placing solar panels on plant roofs in six French cities will reduce carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes annually

Many big names in the auto industry are cleaning
up their act by introducing hybrid andelectric
vehicles which produce fewer carbon emissions. But building cleaner
vehicles isn't the only green effort the industry can contribute. Renaultannounced today that it would
partner with Gestamp Solar to build the largest solar energy project in the
automotive business.

Renault is a French automaker that has an alliance
withNissan,
which makes it the third largest automaker in the world. It produces cars and
vans, and has made tractors, trucks and buses in the past.

Thissolar
panel projectis part of the Renault 2016 - Drive The Change plan,
which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent by 2013 and an additional
10 percent between 2013 and 2016. To do this, Renault is partnering withGestamp Solar, which
is a multinational corporation specializing in renewable energy, steel and
automotive assembly. The idea is to install solar panels at manufacturing
plants throughout France.

Together, Renault and Gestamp Solar will use solar
panels to cover a total area of 450,000 m², which is equivalent to 63 football
fields. The Renault factories receiving solar
panelsare those in Douai, Flins, Maubeuge, Batilly,
Sandouville and Cléon. The areas covered by solar panels will be staff parking
lots at Maubeuge and Cléon, and roofs of delivery and shipping centers at Douai,
Maubeuge, Flins, Batilly and Sandouville.

The solar project will have an installed power
capacity of 60 megawatts, which could power a town with a population of 15,000
annually. By switching to these solar panels, CO2
emissions will be cutby 30,000 tonnes per year.

"Renault has implemented several actions to
reduce consumption at its plants (e.g. the zero carbon plant in
Tangiers)," said Renault's press release. "With the solar roof
project, Renault is showing its concern to conserve resources by diversifying
the energy mix used to generate electricity, and particularly by using
renewable energy sources."

Renault and Gestamp Solar will begin the
installation process in mid June and expect to complete the project by February
2012.

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There is nothing "free" about prepaying for power for 20 years until you break even. That's like buying a chevy volt and saying you are going to get 8 years of free gasoline buy spending an extra $15,000 premium for the car over a standard gasoline engine Cruze.

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007